Mantle of the Gods

We were killing them faster.

Our attack pattern before had been for Aelin and Rix to find a monster, then either call us over to it or bring it to us. Then Ether would hold it while Edward and Justia took turns hacking at it. The group would move on and I’d pick up the crystal.

Now, we were barely stopping. Rix and Aelin were working together, one of them was going further out, signaling to the other, which allowed them to cover a much wider area. Without having to swap blows, Ether only had to hold the monster in a way for one person to hit it. That allowed her to hold it more securely, which allowed Justia to focus on the crystal area a lot more accurately, so they were able to defeat the monster faster. Since we were finding monsters faster and defeating them quicker, we were killing four an hour instead of three an hour.

We had crossed the creek and kept moving east, fanning out from north to south and back. After our seventeenth monster, Aelin and Rix came back from their scouting.

“I’m hungry.” Aelin sat down against a pine tree.

Ether looked at me, “Are we taking a break for lunch?”

“We’re not near any water.” I looked at Rix, “Have you seen anything we can eat?”

The Shooter shook her head.

“We can’t really stop for lunch if we don’t have lunch.” The other four women looked very disappointed, “Let’s change our focus from finding monsters to finding something to eat.”

“That’s going to take for-ev-er.” Aelin pretended to go limp.

“It will if we don’t start, then it will.” I turned to the red-head. “Where’s the closest water?”

“That way about a half hour south.” She pointed to her left.

I looked around, but I honestly had no idea where we were in relation to our camp or even where we had already covered.

“Where haven’t we checked?”

Rix pointed in the other direction, “That way.”

“I guess we’re going that way,” I said.

The other women groaned.

“If we focus on just covering territory, then we should be able to cover more ground.” I looked at Rix, “Can you direct us around any monsters?”

“Maybe?” She shrugged, “Haven’t tried.”

“Are you good to run?” I asked her.

The look she gave me told me that she wasn’t going to answer a stupid question.

“I know the rest of us can’t move as fast as she can, but let’s try to keep up.”

Ether raised her hand, “My speed is three, there’s no way that I can go anywhere close to as fast as she can.” She looked embarrassed, “Or for as long.”

“I’ll…” I stopped.

I had almost offered to carry her. With my ten power and speed, it wouldn’t have been hard to move quickly with her in my arms. I couldn’t have kept up with Rix, and maybe not anyone who had an eight in speed, but I was confident that I could move faster than a six. That wasn’t the only problem either. The underbrush was going to make things difficult to move quickly anyway and we hadn’t seen a trail all day. So it’d be difficult to carry someone without snagging on or slapping them with a branch. Even if there weren’t obstacles, I was supposed to be keeping my stats a secret. I had told everyone that my power stat was eight and since I was a Caster, it would be assumed that my Magic was ten. I told Ether that my recovery stat was also ten, which was twenty-eight total points, giving me seven points to spread between my defense, speed, and aura. Defense and aura were hard to gauge, but speed was something that everyone could observe. I was going to have to make sure I didn’t move too fast or else I would let on that I was more than just an Abnormal.

“Stay back with you.” I finished, “If you need a breather, I’ll make sure you’re not alone.”

She seemed to brighten at that, though I heard a groan from Aelin.

“Just get a room already.” The blonde stuck out her tongue, “So we can quit having the two of you distracted by pretending to be good at flirting.”

The look on Justia’s face told me that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

“Maybe once we finish this,” I said.

“Maybe.” The Tank blushed as she repeated the word.